Unlicensed Thievery
by Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod
Summary: Vetinari has got into the habit of trying to employ felons. Tonker and Lofty, though, are not hanging around in a Thieves' Guild cell on charges of unlicensed thievery so the Patrician can have them busted out. MagdaTonker reflects. MR


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

**Dedication:** To Mr. Terry Pratchett, Esquire. Satirist, author, and really, really good reason to be proud of being British. Hang in there.

* * *

Rufus Drumknott was, by this point, fairly used to being asked to dole out writs ordering mercy for certain felons by Lord Vetinari, inasmuch as one can get used to such a thing. 

But now even the unflappable clerk was about as flapped as it is possible to be. Unless he was very much mistaken, Lord Havelock Vetinari, Patrician, mastermind and graduate of the Assassins' school was about to undermine the political structure he had built. Albert Span- _Moist von Lipwig_ had been one thing, Reacher Gilt another. But two unlicensed thieves? Who were possibly from Borogravia, a country currently recovering from chronic militarism and a religious crisis? He glanced upwards. "Sir, a-"

"Drumknott." The tone was gently reproving. "I am always sure."

"B- Sir, this says they'll be captured by the Thieves' Guild at exactly twelve noon by the University clock and-"

"Quite." The chilling put-down in that voice was quite clear, and Drumknott fell silent. Vetinari continued. "Our dear colleagues in the Thieves' Guild consider our dear shortly-to-be colleagues thorns in their side, as one might expect. _However_... the Thieves' Guild recognises talent, and talent, Drumknott, is something those young people have in abundance, along with resourcefulness." He leant back and steepled his fingers. "They could use people like that. Therefore, they will deliberate on their fate. Unfortunately for Mr. Boggins, so could I use such people, and the Patrician gets first bibs."

"I believe the expression is first _dibs_, sir."

"The principle remains the same, Drumknott. Deliver the orders to His Grace."

Drumknott bowed, and began to glide away, but stopped at the door. "Sir?"

"_Yes_, Drumknott?"

"How-" Drumknott licked his lips, an unusual sign of nervousness in a Dark Clerk- "How did you know?"

"The gods move in mysterious ways, Drumknott." Vetinari returned to his paperwork, and as soon as he had heard the door slide shut allowed a small smile to escape onto his face. Ten dollars of precognition? Worth every penny.

* * *

_Judgement and mercy_, someone who was once called Magda reflected, _are very strange things. Especially when you happen to be on the pointy end. And where are the Thieves already? They had a reputation for efficiency, last time I checked. Or was that the Assassins? _

On the whole, becoming unlicensed thieves in Ankh-Morpork had been a good move. Firstly, no-one expected two young women, however mannishly dressed, to commit a felony. Well, they didn't expect a meek, shy, dark-haired little thing to commit a felony; Magda admitted freely that she generally came under more suspicion.

It was more of a challenge than Quirm had been, or Genua, despite Ella Saturday and her tidily-uniformed guards. Quirm they had left in- well, not exactly flames, but... when a red-haired young man and his dark-haired companion had ridden out of the gates, taking advantage of their training in cross-dressing in the Borogravian army, something had certainly been smoking under the floor of the local thief bigshot's meeting room. Genua they had simply rattled through and been gone in two weeks. Lancre they hadn't bothered with after an old woman with disturbing eyes made it clear she knew what they were up to, and neither Magda nor Tilda had fancied taking 'Mistress Weatherwax' on in a fight. There had been something of a hiccup in a city that should remain unnamed, too, in which a woman with black and white hair and a schoolmarm's expression had expressed her extreme displeasure at having a pleasant holiday interrupted by attempted theft of the family riches. They'd left very, very quickly.

However, they were now in Ankh-Morpork. It had a surprisingly efficient Watch, true, but there were ways around that and after six months in the city half the Watch was convinced that Magda and Tilda were the Thieves' Guild's problem. They were actually one of several problems belonging to the Thieves' Guild, one of which was that their temporary holding cells hadn't been used for years and presented no obstruction to a pair of young women who practically held doctorates in lateral thinking.

For instance, they hadn't been searched properly. Tilda still had her birthday present- a tiny, state-of-the-art mechanical lighter. And Magda wasn't exactly sure what Tilda was doing with it, but it looked productive.

Magda leaned against the wall of the cell, watching Tilda work. _Funny. The Thieves' Guild ought to have killed us by now_. She snorted. _No professionalism whatsoever. Disgraceful. I wonder what's keeping them? We're unlicensed thieves. They don't meditate on mercy for them as a rule... _

Something smoked and fell apart. "Get ready," Tilda said quietly, finger holding the lighter carefully against another part of the frame. Magda stood, and watched her partner finish work on the window. Yes, it had definitely been a serious mistake on behalf of the Thieves' Guild, locking them in a room with a wooden window frame, no matter how sturdy. Gently, with the tip of a finger, Tilda pushed the glass outwards. It fell into the courtyard below with a crash of glass, and quicker than light Tilda and Magda had exited through the window and climbed up onto the roofs.

Corporal Cheery Littlebottom and Constable Dorfl stood in the street outside the Thieves' Guild, listening to the shouts of alarm and swearwords, and watching two figures, one heavier-set than the other, escape over the rooftops of Ankh-Morpork.

"Weren't we supposed to bust them out?" the forensic scientist enquired thoughtfully after a moment's pause.


End file.
